The Child Who Wasn't Mine, The Husband Who Tried to Kill Me, and The 35-Year-Old Lie from the Rooftop

Gabriel managed to pull Rosa up from the cables just as the paramedics arrived. Refusing to go to the hospital where Beatriz’s money could easily reach them, the trio retreated to a safehouse—a decaying apartment in the industrial district of the city.

Rosa, her shoulder bandaged and her voice weak, looked at Elena. "You need to know the truth about that hospital stay, Elena. Before the wedding."

"Tell me," Elena pleaded, her hand resting on her stomach.

"Beatriz didn't just pay a doctor," Rosa whispered. "Gabriel had been captured by Daniel and kept in a private medical wing underneath the Valdés estate. They needed his genetic material. Beatriz wanted a child that carried the true Valdés blood to secure the inheritance, but she wanted Daniel to raise it as his own, completely unaware, so she could control them both. They chemically restrained you, Elena. It was an In Vitro procedure done while you were in that medically induced coma."

Elena’s world shattered. The child she was carrying wasn't Daniel's. It was the child of the stranger standing across the room.

"But Daniel found out," Gabriel added bitterly. "He realized my mother was playing him. That’s why he turned on her, and that's why he wants the baby dead. If he can't have the empire, no one can."

Suddenly, Gabriel's phone buzzed. It was an unknown number. He picked it up and put it on speaker.

"You think you won, big brother?" Daniel's psychotic laugh echoed through the line. "Check the news."

Gabriel rushed to the old television set and turned it on. A breaking news report filled the screen: “A massive fire has just broken out at the Valdés Mansion. Firefighters suspect arson…”